Dec. 26: One miner whose leg was stuck under a boulder is rescued. Four others manage to escape. One confirmed dead. Team experts confirmed the remaining 18 miners are trapped at two different sites. But instability in the tunnels and falling rocks continued to hinder rescue efforts.

Dec. 27: rescuers drill a hole at one site to try to contact the workers and transfer food and provisions. More than 700 people were involved in the operation.

“We have suffered great damages and learned heavy lessons,” Linyin City Mayor Zhang Shuping said at a press conference following the rescue, noting that an investigation was underway as to the cause of the mine’s collapse.

“All over the nation, 60 rescue, geological, and drilling experts were dispatched to conduct the rescue operation, including four experts from Germany,” he said. “They have been with us since the beginning.”

Photo from Sina.

Photo from Sina.

Photo from Sina.

The four rescued miners are among the 29 people who were working underground when the mine collapsed on Dec. 25.

Of the 29 miners, 11 were rescued the following day and one was pronounced dead while 13 remained unaccounted for. The four being rescued today are among those 13 reported missing since the collapse.
The trapped workers were lifted to surface through the wide-hole No.5 rescue tunnel completed on Thursday. Rescuers also made a specially designed man-size rescue capsule for the trapped workers to be transported to the surface one by one. The capsule is about three meters high and half a meter in width.

Five days after the incident, on December 30, rescue officials had detected signs of life underground that led them to the four men. A day later, the men were confirmed to be in stable condition with one suffering from diarrhea.

The first of the four surviving miners trapped in collapsed gypsum mine in Shandong was been lifted up from the tunnel that was 200 meters deep. He has been transported to nearby hospital for further treatment.

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